


New Dawn Fades

by Vikingessa



Category: Hanson
Genre: F/M, Futuristic, Gen, Horror, Steampunk, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:19:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vikingessa/pseuds/Vikingessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ophelia Gaiman is seemingly alone and surviving a world where the dead rule until a near traumatic experience changes things. She's taken in by a group of survivors w/ one of the men turning against her for killing his brother in self-defense. The group navigates through the ashes of a new world, trying to avoid the cannibalistic roamers and battle for survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Dawn Fades

**1: CLOSE CALL**

 

It was a miracle that the diner was still standing with the doors intact. Many of the buildings in the small town had been hit by the bombs a year ago and some were lucky enough to survive. I bit my lip, deep in thought, trying to find an easy access into the diner, without ruining the safety of the exit being locked. The small alleyway was filled with a pungent scene of decay and other unidentifiable rot. The black ballet flats adoring my feet barely made a sound as I trekked carefully to get a glimpse of the front of the building. I stepped around a dead body with an ample sized wound positioned in the forehead. It was difficult to make out if the deceased was male or female with unisex black clothing on it's cheek pressed against the pavement.

I tied my blonde hair up with a rubberband to keep the color from drawing unwanted attention. The grip tightened on the wooden staff in my left hand, prepared to strike at the first sign of danger. My trusty sharpened cutlass was easy to retrieve. It was looped through the black leather belt and hung off of my thin, malnourished hips.

Old newspapers danced down Williams Street as the wind picked up and mixed in with empty soda cans that clanked down the concrete street. The buildings across the way had giant x marks spray painted on the doors and broken glass windows. I spied shiny diamonds inside the tattered glass window display of jeweler's. The name of the store was illegible with only a giant letter J faded by the sun. Expensive stones and paper credits stopped having value with no real purpose in the martial law officially put into effect by the President of the United Regions earlier in the year.

I took a deep breath, peered behind me to make sure the coast was clear and poked my head around the corner. My heart beat wildly in my chest and cried out for another dosage of medication, but forced myself to ignore the warning signs of a panic attack. There was no sign of decaying corpses down the left side of the street. Only the ones without an aversion to the daylight and the blind roamed daringly. I glanced down the right side to see a small horde of six deadheads gathered together in the front of a building a quarter of a mile away. The glass windows in the front of the diner resembled the dilapidated shops and the name knocked clean off with the missing glass.

My stomach rumbled, pushing me to come up with a surefire plan. An expandable ladder stuck out from the top of the building on the right side of the alley way and pushed an idea into my head. I retreated back down the alleyway and looked upward on the left side of the street. It was far too dangerous to traipse down the street and straight into the diner itself. Six walking corpses were more than enough to reasonably take caution in the task of getting into the building.

A yawn escaped my lips just as I finally spotted an expanding emergency ladder within fingertips reach. I pulled down the rusted metallic ladder and it groaned quietly in response. It hit the ground with a soft clink. I quickly made the first few steps up to the roof of the two-story diner. I pulled myself up the top of the ladder with one hand on it and the other held onto the wooden staff. I could feel the cold of the metal through the thin black gloves I wore. My backpack bounced against my back lightly with few supplies in it.

Dried blood graced the dirty rooftop and the trail led to an emergency trapdoor. I cringed when the trapdoor whined in protest, unsure of what laid below in the abandoned diner void of any light. I whipped out a small flash light from the belt around my waist, turned it on and shined it into the depths. The diminutive set of wooden steps were caked with dark brown blood. I inhaled sharply and began my descent down. The light shined brightly down several steps and reached a white door. I waited for a beat, then twisted the brass knob with my staff on standby.

It led to what appeared to be a bedroom. Sunlight streamed through a tattered set of curtains and cast a strange shadows on the pale yellow carpet. There was a full sized bed pushed into the right corner of the room. I edged closer to the bed, unsure of the skeleton buried under the old quilt and discovered it was lifeless. There was a small kitchenette with a stove, sink, microwave and refrigerator wedged in at the end of the room. A small dresser was in the other corner of the room, nearby another closed door. I gave the room a once over before investigating where the other door opened to.

The fairly large bathroom was flooded with light from a wide glass window above a decently sized bathtub. The wide mirror was cracked above a granite counter and sink at the end. Pieces of blonde hair stuck out of the messy ponytail and I tugged my wild mane down. I pulled my backpack off, set it on the dusty counter and opened it up. Leave-in conditioner lotion for my hair managed to tame the frizzy mess and it looked a great deal better pulled up in a messy bun on the top of my head. The few loose pieces of bangs framed my pale face, but didn't make it look any less ghostly due to the dark circles under my blue-green eyes from lack of sleep. I sighed heavily, tossed the bottle into my bag, closed it and secured it on my back again. I turned around, reentered the bedroom and opened the door close to the bed.

I flickered the flashlight back on, walked down the wooden stairs, careful to keep my footsteps at a minimal sound.

The steps led to the back of a long dusty counter of the diner where the help had bustled around in the past. The register lip was wide open and the paper credits were gone. I set my staff against the wall to take the cutlass from my waist in case any of the dead took notice of my presence through the broken front window. There were broken pieces of shattered glass on the floor, presumably plates and cups. I spied an unmoving body on the ground behind the counter with a knife sticking through the skull. I nudged it with the tip of my foot, but it didn't move an inch.

There were rows of tables and booths knocked over to the ground on the main floor. I used a rag to wipe off the counter top, then placed my hands on it to slide over it to explore the main floor. Menus advertising Emeli's Diner were scattered on the floor along with ketchup bottles busted open, sugar packets, salt and pepper shakers. The ground crunched below my feet with each careful step closer to the front. There were no dead bodies in the booths or hidden in dark corners. I slid across the counter to the other side and flickered my flashlight on before daring to explore the kitchen.

The light shined on pots and pans haphazardly decorated the floor. The cupboards were open with only expired and moldy foods on display. I frowned as my stomach gnawed at me in annoyance, but continued forward. The light bounced off of something metallic and shiny at the very bottom of a cupboard. I knelt down to get a better look to discover a few stray cans. The bottom shelf was thick with cobwebs, but it didn't bother me with the gloves on. I moved to a sitting position and withdrew nine cans.

One large can of chicken noodle soup, three cans of syrup preserved peaches, four tall cans of tuna fish and one can of peas were the results of the search. I peeled my backpack off, stacked them strategically and pulled the leather chord tight before securing the clasp.

A chill ran through my bones at the slightest sound from the main floor. I crouched warily, hesitant to take a peak through the wide space to behind the counter where the cook traditionally set orders, but forced myself to take a chance. There was a tall, shadowy figure making its way to the counter, but they hadn't taken notice of the kitchen yet. I crouched back down, dimmed my flashlight and lowered it to the ground in a desperate search to find a quick hiding spot. The cutlass bounced against the side of my thigh comfortingly, but it wasn't enough to ease the anxiety.

A broom stuck out of a small closet across the kitchen. I took tiny slow steps to the promising closet and opened it quickly. I shined the light into the compact space, finding nothing but a plastic dust pan and mop stuck inside of a bucket. The door closed with a slight squeak. I cringed, praying the intruder wasn't close enough to hear the door closing. I held onto the knob with my heart racing, threatening to beat out of my chest and tried to breathe deeply.

Footsteps sounded nearby. There was no way to identify the steps of the living from the dead as the speeds of the dead varied upon how long they were dead. The newborns had strong muscles, while the older ones were so frail that they moved far slower. The knob twisted a little and I used all of my strength to hold it in place. I was startled when there was a strong blow to the door, the knob separated and rested in my hand. I reached to for my cutlass as a bright light was shined onto me and held it behind my back.

“Well, well. What do we have here?” a man's tenor voice sounded.

“Stay back!” I cried out, fearing the man was one of the many legions of cannibals roaming about.

He chuckled lightly, then grabbed the arm that wasn't tucked behind my back. The man dragged me out into the kitchen, my side hit the corner of the metallic island. I cried out again, but didn't lose my grip on the cutlass. “A woman. I haven't seen one in such a long time. This'll be fun.”

“What are you going to do?” It was as though the voice didn't belong to me; shaky, frightened and scared.

“The plan? Have my way with you before my comrades arrive and dispose of you.”

He turned off his flashlight and pushed me up against the island roughly. His calloused hands went to my waist in search for the button, but the belt got in the way. The man growled in annoyance as I painfully wrenched my right arm from behind me and aimed the blade for his throat.

The sound of my heartbeat echoed so loudly I could feel it in my throat as the man fell to his knees. He grasped at his throat and tried to apply pressure to the wound. I dragged the cutlass across his large hands and ran for the broom closet.

“You stupid bitch!” he boomed loudly.

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I closed the broom closet door as best as I possibly could and backed into the wall. It became harder to breathe and a dull pain set into my chest. Reaching for medication was a hopeless cause with his buddies surely on the way with his yelling.

I heard a series of quick steps of more than one person in the kitchen.

“Ike? What happened?”

“Stupid bitch cut me. She, she-” his voice suddenly died out.

“Isaac? Shit, find a rag quickly, Zac. It won't be long before the deadheads smell the blood. We need to clot this as soon as possible.”

“I'm on it,” Zac replied.

Breathing exercises did no good. I shook in fear and prayed for a quick ending to my life. The medication for my heart and anxiety weren't fast acting enough to put me out of my misery before being tortured or raped.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” the first man's voice was filled with tears. “He's gone. He's dead, Zac.”

“He said there was a girl or a woman. Where do you think she went?”

“I don't know, she couldn't have gone far.”

I shrank as close to the back wall as possible and listened to the men search around the kitchen.

“Hey, the knob is broken off over here.”

A bright light shined into the broom closet and blinded me. “Please, no. He was trying to rape me. You have to understand. He was saying how he had to do it before his comrades came. He-”

I was yanked out of the closet again and fell to my knees with the cutlass gripped tightly in my hand. It was too difficult to make out if the men had weapons out or not in the dim lighting. I stood up on weak legs and held the blade out defensively. My heart pounded harder, the room began to spin and my knees buckled. I fell down and gave into the darkness.


End file.
